Walk the Line 2-Disc Collector's Edition

(Fox Home Entertainment, 2.28.2006)

James Mangold is one of the most mystifying filmmakers of our time. He clearly has a great deal of talent and he always seems to be on the brink of a major breakthrough -- that one film that finally works from beginning to end (Copland came pretty damn close) -- but then he goes and makes a flawed but skillful disappointment like Girl, Interrupted or an outright disaster like Kate & Leopold. Even a return to form like Identity lacked a strong original vision and suffered from straining too hard to be mainstream (in spite of its visual flair and a few good performances, that film feels painfully ordinary when all is said and done). With all that in mind, Walk the Line is both impressive and disappointing. There's a thin line between classicism and conventionalism and, well, Mangold walks the line.

We've all seen Walk the Line by now, so let's take a moment to try to figure James Mangold out. As someone who's listened to several Mangold commentaries and interviews, I've always felt that he suffers from chronic director disorder: he has way too much confidence. Mangold knows exactly what he wants and gets it every time. If he questioned his instincts a little more and allowed some uncertainty or ambiguity into his work, his films might finally lose that sense of shallow, pre-digested emotion and morality that so often overwhelms them.

In this sense, David O. Russell -- or Robert Altman, the more prolific David O. Russel of his generation -- is an interesting juxtaposition to Mangold. His films are over-flowing with originality, unresolved questions, and surprise. If you ever listen to a Russell commentary, you'll find that his filmmaking is fueled by doubt and he's more than happy to critique his own work. However, as far as Mangold is concerned, his films are perfect. He never actually says this but, whenever he's talking, that sentiment is just beneath the surface. And, whereas Russell seems open to imperfection, bland perfection appears to be Mangold's raison d'etre.

In fairness, Mangold appeals to some filmgoers for precisely the same reason that he's occasionally unappealing to me: he's not self-indulgent. Classicists see this as good old-fashioned discipline in the tradition of filmmakers like John Ford, George Stevens, William Wyler, and Elia Kazan: four master filmmakers with dozens of classics between them. I have great admiration for these directors and yes, many of them are unfairly ignored today because of their no frills approach to filmmaking, but that's no reason to simply imitate them and leave it at that. To put it bluntly, their time has passed, the lessons of their films have been absorbed, and filmmaking has evolved (not necessarily improved, but it has changed).

To paraphrase Annie Hall, filmmaking is like a shark. If it doesn't move forward, it dies. This is an elaborate way of saying I wish Mangold would occasionally abandon his invisible, classical style and take some risks. That's why filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and David Gordon Green seem so fresh and relevant today. They're enormously inspired by the films of the past, but they're also willing to take risks and mess with the tried-and-true filmmaking techniques of their heroes. Sure, some viewers may take issue with their self-indulgence, but this is a "shortcoming" shared by some of the greatest films and filmmakers of all time. Without reckless self-indulgence, Federico Fellini and Stanley Kubrick could never have made their respective masterpieces: 8 1/2 and 2001 (ie. movies with a lot of numbers in their titles).

But enough Mangold bashing. There's another side to this filmmaker's unfulfilled promise. He may be conventional, but his films are made with intelligence, discipline, and craft (the anti-Mangold, David O. Russell, loses points in the latter two categories). He's never made a great work of art, but he's made several movies that put most of the go-down-easy Hollywood competition to shame. Walk the Line may be his best film to date and, while it relies a little too heavily on the conventions of past rock biopics like The Buddy Holly Story, this is as good as inoffensive, conventional, been-there-done-that Hollywood entertainment gets. Johnny Cash deserves a much more sophisticated rendering of his life story -- along the lines of Martin Scorsese's far more troubling and complex biopics (Raging Bull, The Aviator) -- but, for the time being, this will do.

While Fox has issued both a 2-disc and a 1-disc version of Walk the Line, you really aren't missing much with the 1-disc version. As usual, Mangold delivers an impassioned, over-confident love letter to himself, but he's sincere, articulate, and engaging. Offering information on the production, the film's historical veracity, and various creative choices, Mangold's commentary delivers pretty much all the additional information you need. His romanticized view of Cash -- which differs slightly from the film's occasionally unromantic view -- is echoed by Cash's peers on various disc-2 featurettes. Cash junkies may appreciate the anecdotes but, like Walk the Line itself, this material is respectable yet insubstantial. Additonal features include deleted scenes with commentary (on disc 1) and a few other odds-and-ends (on disc 2).

So what's next for James Mangold? More classicism, it appears. His next feature is a re-make of B-western 3:10 to Yuma, which he's set to upgrade to A-status (by comparison, if Quentin Tarantino re-made 3:10 to Yuma, he'd probably retain the B-western qualities and shake it up with some samurais, gore, and Japanese animation). All hope is probably lost that the somewhat adventurous filmmaker behind the undisciplined, self-indulgent, and original Heavy will ever escape from medium budget Hollywood mediocrity and make another individualistic film. Still, in an age where few Hollywood films even make sense, competence is a skill Mangold should be proud of. But not too proud. -- Jonathan Doyle